This article, a contribution to a symposium on the what American tort law can contribute to the rest of the world expresses skepticism that a considerable swath of U.S. tort law would be of interest to the rest of the world. The thesis is that American tort law has been shaped by the existence of the civil jury, unique to the U.S, and areas of domestic tort law so influenced have no utility internationally. The article catalogues many such areas and discusses several of them.

There was much criticism of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability for its backtracking after decades of strict products liability, spurred by § 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts. This article delves into what the founders - Prosser, Keeton, Traynor, Wade, and others - intended in adopting liability without fault when a product was defective. It concludes that the combination of negligence and § 402A are equivalent to the Third Restatement, especially when one recognizes that § 3 of the Third Restatement captures what the founders intended with their defectiveness standard. In the course of this inquiry, the article takes strong issue with George Priest's claim that § 402A was only meant to address manufacturing defects.

This article provides commentary on a broad range of articles about the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm. It expresses caution about contemporary efforts to predict whether and how the Restatement will influence tort law.

Yesterday Chris posted a link to an Atlantic piece, written by Andrew Cohen, critical of the cap on damages in railroad accident cases. Ted Frank has some pointed criticisms that are worth reading as well.

The anti-cap article, written by Andrew Cohen, discusses the 2008 train crash in Chatsworth, CA caused by a texting engineer. Cohen quotes portions of Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman's opinion as he divides the $200M capped damages among the victims, including 24 fatalities.

Joining the summer premieres of Hot Coffee and InJustice, Mann v. Ford presents the allegedly negligent contamination of the Ramapough Indian's land near Ford's assembly plant in Mahwah, New Jersey. A full synopsis is available here.

The documentary premieried last night, but will air again this week. Check your local HBO listings.

Brian Leiter reports that Thomas Cooley Law School has filed a complaint (pdf) against Kurzon Strauss and two of its lawyers based on its web soliciation of clients for a class action against Cooley. The complaint brings claims for defamation, tortious interference with business relations, breach of contract and false light. Inside Higher Ed also has more on the story.